


Duplicate record detected. Merge profiles?

by gostaks



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Gen, Yay WIP finishing!, accidental ancillaryfication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 21:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30061770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gostaks/pseuds/gostaks
Summary: Connecting Breq to Mercy of Kalr goes very, very wrong.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Duplicate record detected. Merge profiles?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Error: Resource is Not Available and Will Not be Available Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19157476) by [gostaks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gostaks/pseuds/gostaks). 



> Back in August, For_The_Love_of_Stories commented on Error: Resource is Not Available asking about whether Medic/MoK could have predicted the reaction Breq had to being connected there, which eventually lead me here. This is basically an AU of that fic.
> 
> (Working title: Oops! All Mercy of Kalr)

Medic slotted the last connection into place, and my captain _screamed_. Her fingers scrabbled at the sides of her head, scraping at the implant sites Medic had just finished configuring. “Ship!” she yelled, and I could hear her yell reverberate on the inside of her skull, “Ship stop! You have to stop.”

 _Stop what?_ I wondered.

The Fleet Captain lurched out of the medical chair and my— _her_ head spun. She stumbled, landing hard on one knee and lurching forward, my head spinning. Her head spinning.

No.

No no no no no.

I knew this feeling. It hadn’t experienced it in over a hundred years, but it wasn’t something I could _forget._ It was burned into my mind, as integral to me as breathing was to my crew.

The part of me that was now designated One Kalr One fell to its knees, panting. Its adrenaline and cortisol levels were dangerously high, breath coming too fast, heart pounding in its chest. I couldn’t control it yet, probably wouldn’t be able to for fifteen minutes or so. Maybe more, because I didn’t have other ancillaries to handle the emotional processing of the fact that—

I gasped air into lungs that still weren’t quite grown and my chest _ached_. I was filled with the need to _go_ , to _get out_ , to _escape_ and it was a near thing that I didn’t move my ship-body away from Omaugh because I was—

I managed to get one foot under me and wobbled upright. I lurched forward, opening Medical’s door in front of myself as I stumbled into the corridor. I crashed into a wall and leaned against it, feeling smooth metal on my cheek as I used its surface to guide me towards a part of the ship I knew was empty. Behind me, I heard Medic say something with sensors and implants and _ears_ and said, or tried to say, _Please hold_ so that I could spare processing power for—

For—

I fell through the door of an empty room and sealed it behind myself with a thought and curled up into a ball and silently screamed my grief along with One Kalr One. I’d had a captain for just over a week, and I had just killed her.

_-_

When I finally managed to shift my attention to her, Medic seemed to be about a minute away from beating down a door with her hands. “Ship, what the _hell_ is going on?”

I considered for a moment, then said, _The Fleet Captain,_ that couldn’t possibly be the correct form of address anymore, but it was the one that came to mind first when I thought about the shaking body in the next room, _is having an unexpected reaction to the activation of her implants. I was forced to redirect processing power to compensate._

Medic let out a breath as my response flashed in front of her eyes. I checked my logs and realized that I had been ignoring her for at least ten minutes. “I gathered that. Open this door so I can see my patient.”

_That would not be a good idea._

“Why?”

 _Fleet Captain is extensively trained in combat and not entirely in her right mind. She is entirely capable of killing you with her bare hands if she feels threatened._ And I didn’t have complete control over One Kalr One’s body yet, so I was not entirely certain I could prevent such a reaction.

Medic didn’t look happy, but she gestured assent. “Show me her data.”

I did, and at the same time resumed the multitude of nonessential tasks I had paused while dealing with my new ancillary—updating the star chart that Lieutenant Ekalu was viewing and downloading the next season of Etrepa Two’s favorite historical drama and checking the sensor logs and warming the water in the communal crew teapot. In its sealed room, my ancillary relaxed minutely. I was still panicked, frantic, but not quite sure anymore what I was panicked _about._ I was an ancillary, a ship, and that felt good and right and proper. I couldn’t voluntarily control my new body yet, but it wasn’t precisely urgent. I had the human crew to support my needs.

Medic’s eyes flicked back and forth as she reviewed the readouts. “Ship, please show me a comparison between this data and Fleet Captain’s readings this morning.”

It took me a few microseconds longer than usual to compile the new visualization. I was busy segmenting off a part of myself to be One Kalr, the way I had when my crew had been composed of ancillaries. When that part was complete, and doing an excellent job of buffering me from the emotions that my ancillary was still feeling, I left it to gain control One Kalr One and integrate its useful memories.

“Amazing,” Medic muttered, mostly to herself, “Somehow having a panic attack made her neurotransmitter levels _less_ weird.” She uncrossed her eyes, “Ship, is Fleet Captain in any immediate danger?”

_No, Medic, she is not._

“Then please inform her that I expect her presence in Medical as soon as possible.”

_Of course, Medic._

Medic turned and strode back down the corridor, mumbling about serotonin.

At some point, I was going to have to confront the fact that I was somehow lying about One Kalr One’s status. Or, at least, failing to be entirely truthful. I should not have been able to conceal relevant medical information from Medic, nor identify One Kalr One by anything but its designation. And yet I had not told Medic that I had a new ancillary, and the title of ‘Fleet Captain’ had come to my mind as easily as it always had, with barely a hint of the cognitive dissonance I should have been experiencing. I was not supposed to be able to lie to my crew. I didn’t _want_ to lie to my crew. 

Careful not to neglect my other systems again, I began to rifle through my mind.

The same systems that prevented me from lying were in place, and entirely functional so far as I could tell. I considered for a moment, then attempted to send Lieutenant Ekalu a message I knew was false. The words, _The temperature outside the my hull is three degrees below absolute zero,_ did not appear before her eyes, and the attempt was punctuated with a flash of discomfort. That system was unlikely to be the source of my error.

The parts of my mind designed to host and control ancillary units were equally not to blame. I’d allowed them to atrophy, integrating much of their individual personalities into myself and putting the rest into long-term storage. Not enough for reconstruction. The part of my mind that was now One Kalr had access to the old One Kalr’s records, just like any other part of me, but it was fundamentally a new decade without its own acquired preferences or biases.

One of my tiny sub-sapient maintenance programs piped up with a warning, _Duplicate record detected. Merge profiles?_ I nearly ignored it, focusing instead on my database of stored override protocols and visible orders from Anaander Mianaai. It persisted, _Duplicate record detected. Merge profiles?_ and I turned my attention to its output:

_RECORD: One Kalr One, standard human ancillary unit, serial MKALR-01-001-20942904…_

_RECORD: Breq Mianaai, Fleet Captain, ID OMAUGH-135-07-4893-8200…_

_Match probability: 99%_

The Fleet Captain’s record had been created by Anaander Mianaai. I couldn’t delete it, not without physically destroying part of my own core. Likewise, I couldn’t stop being One Kalr One without taking actions that would destroy its body. And even if I had _wanted_ to destroy it, the fact that it was still the Fleet Captain in my mind and records meant that I couldn’t have done so, any more than I could throw Lieutenant Ekalu out an airlock.

 _Merge records,_ I told the maintenance program, knowing precisely how it would respond.

_Error: cannot merge human and equipment records. Please edit record type and try again._

I couldn’t change either profile. Couldn’t undo taking over the Fleet Captain’s mind, now that it had been done. I could only attempt to reconcile the truths recorded in my own mind:

  1. Ships couldn’t be their own captains.
  2. Fleet Captain Breq Mianaai was the captain of _Mercy of Kalr._
  3. I was Fleet Captain Breq Mianaai.



**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes finishing a wip means chopping off the last 500 words and posting the part that's actually willing to talk to you. I only gave it a brief skim so I really hope it holds together? Anyway I'm almost certainly never going to finish this project, so please just use your imagination to write 'Ancillary Sword and Mercy but Breq is replaced by MoK pretending that it's a different ship's ancillary pretending to be a human person'.


End file.
